Data to Believe In

OUR FIFTH EVENT IN THE VF DATA SERIES WAS HELD ON THE 20TH NOVEMBER AT AN EXCLUSIVE NYC VENUE.

Our panel of speakers came from diverse backgrounds in technology, consumer goods, and data. They gave us valuable insights on how to achieve buy-in to make organisations data-driven.

The VF Data Series came to the US for a second time on November 20th. Our fifth VF Data Series event was held at a chic, exclusive venue in the heart of New York City. Our guests enjoyed a delicious breakfast buffet and unique insights by tech leaders from a variety of backgrounds.

Our panel discussion was led by our Senior Vice President of Data Consulting, Ryan Palsho and our guest speakers Nami Choe, Talvor Culver, Rodrigo Sabato and Cindy Villamil-Gutierrez. We spoke with our guest speakers about their experiences advocating the importance of being a data-driven organisation. We also took questions from our audience and discussed how to measure success with data, and the importance of educating and understanding data in organisations.

Topics included Big Data, Digital Transformation, People Data and Data Metrics.

OUR PANEL GUESTS

NAMI CHOE, HEAD OF DATA & MEASUREMENT, GOOGLE

Nami is passionate about driving positive outcomes for marketers through data and technology. Through her work and experience at both the agency and direct marketer businesses, she has learned that we are still just scratching the surface when unleashing the power of data. She believes that people and processes have yet to fully embrace data and it's tremendous value. She received her MS at Columbia University in Biostatistics thinking that she would go into pharmaceutical research, and a BA in Sociology. Nami is married with two active daughters and travels as much as she can.

TAYLOR CULVER, FOUNDER, XENODATA PARTNERS

Taylor Culver is the Founder of XenoDATA Partners, a boutique management consulting firm partnering with you on making your data strategy successful. He prides himself on being able to help organizations understand their core data issues through a business lens, and partner with leading technology and service providers to achieve these goals both in an implementation and advisory capacity. In today's market, companies cannot afford investments in technologies or products that do not produce results. XenoDATA works to empower teams with strategies, processes, and technologies that drive financial results.

Prior to founding XenoDATA, Taylor was the head of data strategy for Sterling, a pre-employment background screening company, where he led significant business driven transformation through product development, data & content licensing & analytics initiatives. Before Sterling, he worked in corporate finance at the Hertz corporation where he supported multiple acquisitions and technology projects. He has his MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a bachelor's degree in finance from Santa Clara University.

RODRIGO SABATO, GLOBAL DIRECTOR PEOPLE PROJECTS, ANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV

Rodrigo Sabato holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

He joined the Global team at AB InBev in 2014, where he has held multiple roles within the Global Commercial team, before recently transitioning to the Global People team.

He currently leads the Data Strategy and Sales Blueprint efforts for the Global People organization.

CINDY VILLAMIL-GUTIERREZ, MANAGER, DATA STRATEGY, STERLING

As Manager, Data Strategy at Sterling, Cindy Villamil-Gutierrez is part of the team responsible for the implementation and adoption of the organization’s internal and client-facing analytics tools, Looker and ThoughtSpot, as well as the creation of all new client-facing analytics products. Over the past year, the team has made the analytics products available to over 300 clients and counting. Earlier in her professional career, Cindy was a science educator at The Newark Museum and was an astrophysics researcher at the Gemini Observatory (Hilo, Hawaii), where she performed analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images of galaxy clusters.